The truth will prevail!

In my last Letter, (Vol 7 No 44), I argued that we needed to oppose the pernicious tendency in our country of the falsification of reality to advance the particular agendas of forces that are opposed to our movement and the national democratic revolution. I argued that we faced a permanent task to chain the canards.

When I wrote the Letter I did not know that there was yet another canard in the making, which was let loose three days after the publication of the last edition of this journal. This time the source of the canard was the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), which made the startling claim that the masses of our people are now poorer than they were in 1996.

In last week’s Letter I said: “Or take other canards that emanate from people who are supposedly members of our democratic movement. These range from the absurd assertion that the masses of our people are poorer now than they were during the apartheid period...” In essence the SAIRR repeats this absurd assertion.

SAIRR on poverty

On Monday 12 November, the SAIRR published a report which claimed that “Using the globally accepted measure of poverty, of people living on less than one US dollar per day, poverty has increased in South Africa, both in absolute numbers and proportionally. The proportion of South Africans living on less than $1/day doubled between 1996 and 2005.”

It said that 4.2 million people were living on less than $1 (about R6.74) a day in 2005, up from 1.9 million in 1996. The SAIRR researcher Marius Roodt said, “It is going to take a long time to get rid of the poverty. The government’s social grants are helping, but to say poverty will be halved in seven years is a bit ambitious.”

Mid-term Review

On 21 June, 2007, the State Presidency published the “Development Indicators Mid-Term Review”. Among others, these Indicators also reflect on the issue of poverty.

On the issue of per capita income, the Review says, “Since 2002, strong overall income growth, including the expansion of social grants, resulted in the rise of the income of the poorest 10 and 20 per cent of the population. However, the rate of improvement of income for the poor has not matched that of the rich, and thus while income poverty is declining, inequality has not been reduced.”

The Review says that per capita real income for the poorest 10% in 1996 was R522. This had risen to R734 by 2006. The figures for the poorest 20% were R758 and R1,051.

The Review also includes a Poverty Headcount Index. In this regard it says, “This index measures the number of people living below a poverty line of R3,000 per capita per annum (in 2000 constant Rand). The strong decline in the headcount poverty rate (PO) after 2001 is mainly due to the expansion of social grants, and more jobs created in the economy.” The percentage of people living below this poverty line declined from 53.1% in 1996 to 43.2% in 2006.

The Review also includes a Poverty Gap Index (P1) and a Squared Poverty Gap Index (P2). In this regard, the Review says: “The P1 measures the depth of income poverty compared to a poverty line of R3,000 per capita per annum (in 2000 constant Rand). The declining P1 shows that incomes and/or expenditure of those in poverty improved, bringing the very poor closer to the poverty line.

“In addition, the declining P2 shows that the severity of poverty has been reduced, especially since 2002.” The P1 figures for 1996 and 2006 showing this decline are 0.26 and 0.20 respectively. The P2 figures are 0.16 and 0.12.

The Review also includes a Living Standards Measure (LSM). In this regard the document says, “Between 2000 and 2005, the LSM data shows a significant decrease of the number of people in the poorest categories (LSM 1-3), with a marked reduction of the number of people living in LSM 1. The number of people living in LSM 4-10 shows an increase and in part reflects the growth of the middle classes.”

The LSM 1 figures for 2001/02 and 2005/06 reflecting average monthly incomes are R742 and R999. The relevant LSM 2 figures are R883 and R1,214. The similar figures for LSM 3 are R1,092 and R1,521.

The Review also contains figures indicating the extent of Social-Assistance Support extended to deserving members of our population. In this regard, the Review says:

“At present, nearly 12 million people receive social grants, and 3.2 per cent of the GDP is spent on social grant assistance. The increase in the number of beneficiaries over the years has been as a result of increased government efforts to reach out to those people that are eligible to receive social assistance grants.

“The strong growth in grants in aid, care dependency grant and disability grant, is a reflection of government’s programme of social assistance and poverty reduction for persons with disabilities. The strong growth in the uptake of grants has stabilised over the past two years as the majority of eligible beneficiaries have been registered.” The total number of recipients in 1999 was 2,587,373. The number in 2006 had increased to 10,980,654.

With regard to the information supplied in the “Development Indicators Mid-Term Review”, I must underline that the Presidency relied on studies carried out by independent economists and institutions not connected to or commissioned by the Government. The figures for the grants were drawn from the government Social Security Pension System and the National Treasury. I mention these facts to emphasise the point that the Presidency did not falsify the figures about poverty, to hide our reality.

Push back the frontiers of poverty

Our movement and Government have taken a leading position in drawing attention to and focusing on the challenge of fighting poverty. This struggle served as the central element in the Manifesto we presented to the nation during the 2004 and 2006 elections precisely because we recognise the critical challenge we face to alleviate and eradicate poverty.

Government programmes have also focused on this important challenge. To indicate its seriousness in this regard, the Government is working to elaborate poverty indices as well as further refine its integrated offensive against poverty, reaching down to individual households, to improve the effectiveness of our work in this regard.

Our approach towards this vitally important matter is informed by what we said in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) shortly before the historic elections of 1994. The RDP said: “It is not merely the lack of income which determines poverty. An enormous proportion of very basic needs are presently unmet. In attacking poverty and deprivation, the RDP aims to set South Africa firmly on the road to eliminating hunger, providing land and housing to all our people, providing access to safe water and sanitation for all, ensuring the availability of affordable and sustainable energy sources, eliminating illiteracy, raising the quality of education and training for children and adults, protecting the environment, and improving our health services and making them accessible to all.”

For its part our official statistics agency, StatsSA says that poverty should be seen “in a broader perspective than merely the extent of low income or low expenditure in the country. It is seen here as the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human development to lead a long, healthy, creative life and to enjoy a decent standard of living, freedom, dignity, self-esteem and respect from others.”

The SAIRR relies on a definition of poverty that is radically different from the one spelt out in the RDP and described by StatsSA. Necessarily, this produces a distortion of our reality which amounts to a falsification of this reality. Evidently the SAIRR depended for its figures on “Global Insight Southern Africa, Regional Economic Focus, 2006.” The SAIRR document says on the page on which it carries the figures that suggest that poverty has increased over the last ten years:

“People in poverty are defined as those living in households with incomes less than the poverty income. Poverty income varies according to household size – the larger the household, the larger the income required to keep its members out of poverty. Poverty income levels ranged from R871 per month for one individual, to R3,314 for a household of eight members or more in 2005.”

Fact and fiction

Last year the SAIRR trotted out the same canard that it broadcast to the country on 12 November. On that occasion Dr Vusi Gumede of the Policy Coordination and Advisory Services in the Presidency responded with an article that was published by the “Star” newspaper on 13 April 2006. We reproduce this article immediately below, in full, because it exposes even the canard told this year by the SAIRR. Dr Gumede wrote:

“The annual South Africa Survey by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) contains much useful information on social dynamics within our society. But in some respects the authors get it wrong, and miss the extent to which we have as a country have come a long way. The latest survey just released is a case in point.

“In a statement released by the SAIRR to profile the publication, headlined ‘Poor left behind as black middle class grows’, the SAIRR explains that ‘levels of inequality measured by the gini coefficient, had increased for all race groups except whites since 1996.’

“Barely acknowledging this to be a consequence of many black people breaking through the glass ceiling of apartheid, the statement expresses concern that ‘such growth has been accompanied by an increase in poverty among the lowest income groups’.

“Besides the issue of relativity – where growth in inequality does not necessarily translate into the poor getting poorer – recent academic studies show that in fact there has been a marked reduction in poverty, especially since about 2000.

“In terms of methodology, the use of mainly money-metric measures to gauge poverty and inequality has been widely questioned by amongst others, renowned scholars such as Amartya Sen and Nanak Kwakwane. Yet even within the narrow money-metric approach of income poverty, SAIRR seems to get it wrong.

“Statistics SA releases various data series on income and expenditure, series that many researchers utilise in calculating the extent of income poverty and inequality. Notably, the SAIRR report does not refer to StatsSA datasets. Though such data has some debated problems, it is widely used.

“Despite the fact that numbers and proportions of income-poor people shows a clear decline, the SAIRR report says that ‘people living in poverty have increased, peaking in 2002’. In fact, the report shows and says that the rate of poverty ‘decreased by 0,7% between 1997 and 2002’.

“The critical point however is that there are various dimensions of poverty – apart from income – all of which are important. We should take into account not only the income at people's disposal but also the ‘social wage’, namely the value of those services provided by the state which enhance people's lives – such as education, health, housing and free basic services. The ten-year review of government demonstrated that the impact of social spending substantially reduced inequality.

“More recent studies also, contrary to the conclusion of the SAIRR report, point to the fact that poverty has declined. A study by Haroon Bhorat, Pranushka Naidoo and Carlene van der Westhuizen analysing welfare shifts between 1993 and 2004 indicates, for example, that access to formal housing grew by 42% and 34% for income deciles 1 and 2 between 1993 and 2004, and 21% and 16% for deciles 3 and 4. Access to piped water increased by 187% in decile 1, while the growth was 31% in the 4th decile. Access to electricity for lighting for the poorest households – those in decile 1 – grew by a phenomenal 578%. These statistics make very clear that delivery of these services has been strongly pro-poor.

“But perhaps the most succinct measure of our country's performance is the dramatic decline since 1994 in the levels of asset and service poverty as well as asset and service inequality. While in 1993, 40% of households were asset- (and service-) poor, by 2004 this figure had been almost halved to 22%. While the level of asset- and service-inequality (measured by the Gini coefficient) was 0.32 in 1993, by 2004 it stood at 0.24.

“A separate study by Servaas van der Berg, Ronelle Burger, Rulof Burger, Megan Louw and Derek Yu finds that poverty has stabilised since the political transition and decreased sharply since 2000.

“Utilising a lower poverty line set at R250 household income per month or R3,000 per year in 2000 Rands, they conclude that in more recent years, the proportion of people living in poverty appears to have declined substantially – from 18.5-million in 2000 to 15.4-million in 2004. Those who are not poor increased from 26.2-million in 2000 to 31-million in 2004.

“The study also shows that the per capita real incomes of people in the poorest two population quintiles rose by more than 30% during 2000-2004. The authors conclude that wherever you draw the income poverty line in the range from R2,000 to R4,000 per capita income per annum, poverty decreased sharply since about 2002 after a modest rise at the end of the previous decade. They argue that the impact on the poor of the recent expansion of social grants is likely to have been major, considering that real transfers from government increased by some R22-billion in the last two years (in 2000 Rands). By the end of last year the number of beneficiaries of social grants had reached 10.5-million.

“With regard to upward mobility of the black population, the authors conclude that the numbers of the higher middle class increased almost threefold from about almost 400,000 to almost 1,2-million in 11 years over the period 1993-2004.

“So, there has been progress in reducing poverty. However, we cannot be complacent, because there is still much to be done, and it needs to be done faster and better. But the progress we have made is ground for confidence that South Africa will indeed halve poverty by 2014.”

Chain the canards!

The SAIRR has positioned itself as the liberal alternative to our movement. We must assume that because of this it is averse to using the sources of information cited by Dr Gumede. It could also have used the recently released StatsSA Community Survey 2007, which we reviewed in Vol 7 No 42 of this journal, more accurately to report on improvements in the standard of living of the masses of our people.

Its obvious unwillingness to do any of these things, choosing instead to discover statistics that serve the political purpose of discrediting our movement and government underlines the imperative that we must at all times stand ready to chain the canards!

What the media says

Lies, damned lies!

In various editions of this journal, this column has exposed deliberate lies that have been told by some in the domestic and international media, who have the specific intention to discredit our movement, the ANC, and our government.

The work to expose these lies is never a pleasant task. However it cannot be avoided as long as some in the media elect to tell lies about our movement, our government and country, to promote their agendas, as did one Chris McGreal in an article published by the British Guardian newspaper on 13 November 2007.

The shameless fabrications concocted by McGreal derive from the unending campaign by our opponents to invent corrupt practice around the so-called “arms deal” – the acquisition for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) of aircraft, corvettes and submarines.

Over the years government has insisted that the acquisition process resulting in government entering into primary contracts with the suppliers was free of any corruption and challenged anybody with information to the contrary to produce this information.

To date, absolutely nobody has done so. Rather our accusers have been happy to trot out various allegations, as does McGreal. They then engage in the dishonest practice of presenting these allegations as facts, obviously resolved that no ethical consideration, such as respect for the truth, will be allowed to frustrate their campaign.

Challenge #1

McGreal says, “A former speaker of parliament has already been convicted of accepting a bribe from a German weapons manufacturer.” This is a blatant lie. We challenge McGreal to say who this “former speaker” is.

Challenge #2

McGreal says, “Mbeki has quashed investigations by the South African parliament, the auditor general and the director of public prosecutions into the links between senior ANC officials, the party and the arms companies.” This is a blatant lie. We challenge McGreal to produce even one fact to substantiate the allegation he makes.

Challenge #3

The truth that is known by everybody, but which McGreal hopes to wipe out from public memory, is that the Public Accounts Committee (SCOPA) of parliament conducted its own investigation without any let or hindrance by the ANC or the government, exactly because we had nothing to hide. As was its right and duty, the executive arm of government, through the then Leader of Government Business, the Deputy President of the Republic, Jacob Zuma, wrote to SCOPA to respond to its Report. We challenge McGreal to produce one fact to disprove this statement.

Challenge #4

McGreal says Tony Yengeni “led the campaign on behalf of Mbeki to shut down parliament’s investigation of the weapons contracts.” This is a blatant lie. We challenge McGreal to produce one fact to substantiate his claim.

Challenge #5

The Parliamentary Committee recommended that various state organs should conduct an investigation into the defence procurement. As a result, our country’s Auditor General, the National Director of Public Prosecutions and the Public Protector carried out this work jointly and submitted their Report to Parliament. We challenge McGreal to produce one fact to demonstrate that what we have said is untrue.

McGreal says “the South African air force’s requirements (for a trainer aircraft) could have been adequately met through the cheaper Italian (Aeromacchi) bid (instead of the more expensive BAe Systems bid).” But what are the facts!

The truth is that once the decision was taken to acquire the Gripen fighter-aircraft for the airforce, it was clear that it would be incorrect to acquire the Aeromacchi trainer. This was for the simple reason that it would not be possible to graduate from the Aeromacchi trainer to fly the Gripen.

Challenge #6

The BAe Systems Hawk satisfied the requirements for a trainer to prepare pilots to fly the Gripen. Had we bought the Aeromacchi trainer, we would still have to buy the Hawk and use the Italian trainer to prepare pilots to fly the Hawk, despite the fact that our airforce already has trainers to prepare pilots to fly this aircraft. Clearly it would be absurd to proceed in this manner. We challenge McGreal to produce one fact to demonstrate that what we have said is false.

Challenge #7

McGreal says our airforce was “strongly opposed to buying the British fighters”. This is a blatant lie. We challenge McGreal to produce one fact to substantiate his claim.

Challenge #8

McGreal also says “the secretary of defence, Pierre Steyn, later resigned over what he described to investigators as the ‘arse-about-face’ decision in which the military’s requirements were tailored to suit the choice already made by the politicians.”

The truth is that the defence acquisition was based on acceptance of the outcomes of a Defence Review in which the SA National Defence Force was intimately involved, which were accepted by our Parliament and our population at large. What McGreal said about Pierre Steyn is a blatant lie. We challenge McGreal to produce one fact to prove the contrary.

Challenge #9

McGreal reports that one Andrew Feinstein, a former member of the ANC and MP, “said the politicians decided in favour of the British planes at an ‘informal meeting’ attended by Mbeki, (the late former minister of Defence, Joe) Modise and at least one official since implicated in corruption in the deal. The BAe bid was then presented to the cabinet for approval without any other bids on the table.”

The entirety of the assertions made in this passage is nothing more than a conglomeration of blatant lies. We challenge McGreal to ask his informant, Andrew Feinstein, to assist him by providing him with the single facts to substantiate the claims that McGreal chose to report approvingly.

Challenge #10

McGreal wrote, “Feinstein says that besides eventually shutting down his (sic!) investigation, the presidency also put pressure on the auditor general to alter a report saying there were ‘fundamental flaws’ in the process, (which) was manipulated to ensure the contract went to BAe.”

There was never any Feinstein investigation and no pressure was put on the Auditor General (AG) to alter any of his findings. In keeping with established practice, the AG gave government a copy of his report to ensure the accuracy of the facts that would inform his findings. Accordingly, the government responded to the matter of facts, as required in any auditing process, which also guarantees the AG the right to verify any facts presented to him/her. Again we challenge McGreal to ask his informant, Andrew Feinstein, to assist him by providing him with the single facts to substantiate the claims that McGreal chose to report approvingly.

Challenge #11

McGreal says Tony Yengeni “went to prison for accepting bribes from a German arms manufacturer”. Yengeni was found guilty of fraud, based on the charge that he had defrauded Parliament by presenting it with false information. The assertion made by McGreal is both a blatant lie and is libellous. We challenge McGreal to produce one fact to prove that Yengeni was convicted of accepting a bribe by a German arms manufacturer.

Challenge #12

Like others who share his agenda, McGreal does not explain that Shabir Shaik is serving a jail sentence for offences that have absolutely nothing to do with the primary contracts into which government entered, which were not affected by any corruption. We challenge McGreal to produce one fact to show that what we have said is not true.

Challenge #13

McGreal wrote, “BAe, along with German and French firms, have been accused of paying bribes to senior ANC politicians and government officials, and of helping to fund the ANC’s 1999 election campaign in return for a slice of the country’s largest ever weapons buying spree.” We challenge McGreal to produce one fact that has been tabled by our accusers in almost a decade, to substantiate their accusations.

Challenge #14

McGreal said “Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO)...(has made a) request to the South Africans for assistance (with investigations it is conducting into allegations that BAe)...paid (£75m) in ‘commissions’. That help has not been forthcoming.” The assertion about our government’s refusal to “help” the SFO is a blatant lie. We challenge McGreal to tell the whole truth in this regard, including the legal requirements that must be met when any legal assistance is requested, consistent with the obligation to respect the rule of law.

McGreal ended his article, which is made up of a litany of fabrications, by saying “(ANC Deputy President) Zuma is now facing the prospect of corruption charges himself, which may derail his efforts to replace Mbeki as president. He has said if he does land up in court he will name names, and bring others in the ANC down with him.”

We do not know if Deputy President Zuma will be prosecuted. Unlike McGreal, we have never heard him say he will “name names, and bring others in the ANC down with him”. If this is true, and means that our Deputy President will expose all those in our movement who have been involved in corruption, he will enjoy the full and unqualified support of the entirety of the ANC in all its echelons.

Challenge #15

McGreal wrote “Despite Mbeki’s efforts to bury the issue, the graft around the arms deal keeps rearing its head.” Cabinet, led by Nelson Mandela, constituted a Cabinet Committee to lead the defence acquisition process that emanated from the requirements identified during an eminently transparent Defence Review, to which we have referred.

This Cabinet Committee was chaired by the then Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki, and included the Ministers of Defence, Finance, Trade and Industry and Public Enterprises. This Committee considered all the bids, at all times sitting as a collective, and made the necessary and considered recommendations to our Cabinet.

Having studied these recommendations, our Cabinet chose the “preferred bidders” who ultimately met our requirements, after the perfectly normal negotiations with them to finalise the detailed contractual agreements between them, the primary contractors, and our Government.

The “graft around the arms deal” alleged by McGreal could only have taken place if the primary contractors succeeded to bribe the members of the Cabinet Committee and the Cabinet, the collectives involved in awarding the defence contracts. McGreal would have no difficulty of any kind in establishing the specific names of all those who were members of these collectives and participated in the relevant meetings, including the final meetings in 2000. Should he seek this information, we are certain that government would be more than willing to assist him.

It is now more than seven years since the conclusion of the strategic defence procurement contracts – the so-called arms deal. Surely this is a long enough period of time to unearth any wrongdoing that might have taken place during the consideration, the negotiation and the awarding of these contracts.

We challenge McGreal to produce even one solitary fact that demonstrates that any of the people who were members of the Cabinet collectives to which we have referred were involved in any graft. In this regard, of course McGreal would be perfectly free to consult all his informants, including Feinstein, the British SFO, and the others whose interests are and have been served by the propagation of falsehoods that some in the domestic and international media have been pleased to print and broadcast over many years, treating with absolute contempt their ethical obligation not to tell lies.

Four-and-a-half years ago, in Vol 3 No 21 of this Journal, we published a Letter from the President entitled “Our country needs facts, not groundless allegations”. In this Letter our President said:

“In the Biblical Gospel according to St Matthew, it is said that Jesus Christ saw Simon Peter and his brother Andrew fishing in the Sea of Galilee. And He said to them: "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."

“Perhaps taking a cue from this, some in our country have appointed themselves as ‘fishers of corrupt men’. Our governance system is the sea in which they have chosen to exercise their craft. From everything they say, it is clear that they know it as a matter of fact that they are bound to return from their fishing expeditions with huge catches of corrupt men (and women)....

“We should not, and will not abandon the offensive to defeat the insulting campaigns further to entrench a stereotype that has, for centuries, sought to portray Africans as a people that is corrupt, given to telling lies, prone to theft and self-enrichment by immoral means, a people that is otherwise contemptible in the eyes of the ‘civilised’. We must expect that, as usual, our opponents will accuse us of "playing the race card", to stop us confronting the challenge of racism.

“The fishers of corrupt men are determined to prove everything in the anti-African stereotype. They rely on their capacity to produce long shadows and innumerable allegations around the effort of our government to supply the South African National Defence Force with the means to discharge its constitutional and continental obligations. They are confident that these long shadows and allegations without number will engulf and suffocate the forces that fought for and lead our process of democratisation, reconstruction and development.

“However, what our country needs is substance and not shadows, facts instead of allegations, and the eradication of racism. The struggle continues.”

The lies told by McGreal, for which the British Guardian gave him space in its pages, confirm everything our President said in 2003. The struggle continues.

(In this article we have presented 15 specific challenges to Chris McGreal to respond to the assertion we have made that he abused the readers of the Guardian by feeding them a plethora of lies. McGreal may be in possession of facts that would disprove the statements we have made. Should McGreal provide such facts, ANC Today undertakes to publish these in full, to ensure that the truth is told and that we respect the well-established media practice of the right to reply. Editor.)

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